


Two Slim Jims and A Box of mac'n cheese

by CruelisnotMason



Series: Sheith Crossovers [1]
Category: Gilmore Girls, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attraction, Charity Auctions, F/F, Humor, Keith's a grumpy diner guy, M/M, Slice of Life, Small Towns, readable even if you don't know gilmoregirls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25805917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: The small town Stars Hollow is holding its annual basket charity auction and as model citizens, Shiro and his daughter both packed a basket with food for it. Rule says that the buyer of the basket gets a date with its packer.It promises to be a relaxed day for Shiro, if not for the townspeople tinkering with his lovelife.
Relationships: Allura & Shiro (Voltron), Hunk & Shiro (Voltron), Hunk/Ryan Kinkade, Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Sheith Crossovers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116764
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36
Collections: Sheith Inspired by Gilmore Girls





	Two Slim Jims and A Box of mac'n cheese

**Author's Note:**

> First, a major thanks @[benicemurphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy) for beta-ing this fic. I'm only writing occassionally at the moment and you murphed (pun intended) this fic into something readable. 
> 
> Second: Finally finished this one-shot! Writing a gilmore girls inspired sheith fic has been since long a thought Murphy and I had and I'm glad I finally sat my ass down to write it. I feel like the plot isn't extraordinary itself and certainly nothing new since it is heavily referencing the basket episode from season 3 (I think?), but I really liked the idea of Keith being Shiro's grumpy diner boy & knight in shining armor. 
> 
> Third... the original is called Gilmore Girls ...sooooooo is this... Shirogane sweeties? Oh, that sounds bad-

It's another sunny day in Stars Hollow, and yet Shiro, of all people, is about to have a crisis. 

Only a few hours earlier, he was still busy packing his basket for the annual charity auction, and it was all fun and games until one minor thing ruined Shiro’s plans for a relaxed day. 

Prior to the current disaster, he had joyfully dumped all of the barely-edible contents left from his fridge straight into the thoughtlessly-bought basket now proudly displayed on a pedestal in front of the town’s beloved little pavilion. He had shut the basket’s lid vigorously and set the small, mediocre-looking thing that he had bought from the supermarket right at the town square’s corner, only a few hours earlier. 

Shiro had been satisfied with himself, and imagined himself sitting with whoever bought the basket, knowing they’d both done good — him, by packing the basket, and the other person by spending a couple bucks on a charity that will benefit local animal shelters this year.

Like an idiot, Shiro simply assumed one of the townspeople who liked doing him a favor would bid on it, knowing full well that as soon as Slav, Stars Hollows’ mayor, was reading the contents of Shiro’s basket out loud to the crowd with a disdainful look in his eyes, nobody could genuinely bid on it for food.

Shiro could have taken that jab to the ribs. It was for charity, after all. 

But this year, nothing goes as planned. 

Slav has barely stated the basket’s contents — two Slim Jims and one expired box of instant mac’n cheese — and three eager dudes start bidding on what can barely be called an accomplishment, let alone a picnic basket.

The first few moments, Shiro is still as relaxed as he can be; he smiles at the sound of an increasing price for his basket. Despite their height and bulkyness of some, none of contestants seem _that_ hungry to Shiro, or _that_ desperate to get their hands on the contents. The price really starts to grow higher than what anyone would pay for two packaged Slim Jims.

In a blink of an eye, Shiro gets reminded of the show Storage Wars and people’s wild interest in buying junk they haven’t even seen yet, and he wonders if all three of the eager bidders don’t know what Slim Jims are.

But that would be ridiculous, right?

Shiro looks through the rows of town citizens, eyes stopping at one person holding up their hand.

 _No_. 

It’s Griffin. 

The other two, he realizes with a look to the right, he can’t really recognize. It should not matter, anyway, because Shiro spots another person, standing a bit further away and watching in graceful amusement, and knows in an instant _who's_ behind three single men bidding on Shiro’s auction basket. 

“Oh god.” Shiro sighs.

His daughter stands right next to him and throws him a surprised gaze. “Everything good, Dad?” she asks, pulling on the sleeve of his white-blue button-up. 

“Just a case of a casual invasion in my privacy,” he replies, with a sideways look at his daughter. “The usual, you could say.”

“Wow,” his daughter answers. “Are you the pink-haired protagonist, or what?”

His daughter, brown-eyed, with bright hair and the soft smile of an angel and yet a snappy tongue had also bought and filled a basket this year, eagerly hoping for a nice picnic with her girlfriend Dean. 

“This town’s bananas,” Shiro tells her. “I’m glad at least your sweet teenager life with your amazing girlfriend stays sitcom-drama free.”

She’s nervously chuckling in a response, and Shiro raises an eyebrow. 

“Forty!”

“James raising it to forty!” Slav repeats, and Shiro realizes that they need to unpack that one at another time. 

“Be right back,” he says and dashes off to the sidelines; the big remodelled tobacco shelter closeby.

"How do you like my public execution?" he throws at Allura, the local dancing studio teacher. She’s in her comfortable leggings and a sweater, leaning against the doorframe of her studio. 

Unlike most people, Allura quickly catches on to Shiro's dry humor. “I wouldn’t compare it to that,” she says with a smile.

“Then we’ll call it my friend selling me off to the highest bidder,” Shiro proposes. “Got the wedding date ready, too?” 

Allura takes a deep breath and reaches for her reusable to-go cup, likely filled with green tea. Shiro already expects what’s coming, and then doesn’t expect it at the same time.

"It's been a while since you last dated anyone, don't you think, Shiro?" 

Shiro does not, in fact, think that at all. 

Not even when he's having ice cream instead of dinner and watches 3 hours of Titanic instead of his favorite movie that would make him laugh instead. Right now, he’d love to flee from this talk, just like Nelson Hibbert flees from practically everyone in “The Wrong Guy”, thinking he’s accused of something that nobody holds him accountable for.

"I'm fine with focusing on work. And my daughter." 

The daughter card usually works great with the townspeople. Not so much with Allura, though. She throws him an unconvinced look and shrugs. 

Farther in the front, the guys are still bidding. Shiro slowly loses his nerve. He’s quickly decided that he does not want to date any of them, especially if they are not smart enough to get another, wellfilled basket and _then_ ask him out. Not even Shiro would want to eat the ingredients from his basket. 

Hunk's, on the other hand— he’d happily take _that_ one. 

Usually, Hunk earns the title of ‘Most Expensive Basket’ every year at the auction. Naturally, he probably would have won this year too— after all, he works together with Shiro at the Dragonfly Inn, but as the master chef. Hunk’s capable of many things: He’s a good listener, an absolute sweetheart, loves playing the guitar in his free time, and helps his boyfriend, Kinkade, tend his private vegetable garden in his free time. 

Hunk is a genius in the kitchen and always packs his basket extraordinarily with this year as Kinkade’s first time buying — but something in Shiro’s gut tells him that this year, Hunk might have a competitor for that title. 

Even though Hunk wouldn’t say it out loud, he takes pride in it, and Shiro wouldn’t want him, of all people, to be disappointed today.

Shiro _needs_ to do something.

“Uh,” Shiro says loudly, but not loudly enough. It’s barely a syllable, and therefore it’s a given that no one hears him. “Slav!” he yells then, quite louder than his groaned one syllable. “Could we, like—”

“I bid fifty!” James shouts, to Shiro’s horror. Allura cackles.

“—take a little pause?”

The townspeople turn around to Shiro. Luckily, most of them know and like him, and therefore shrug off his request. 

“Sweetie, we gotta get done with this today!” one older lady yells at him, but Shiro’s eyes stay fixed on Slav, and Slav turns to him, and stares back.

For a few seconds, it seems almost like he’ll give in.

“No,” Slav then says. “If we stop now, there’s a twenty-two percent chance that the picnickers won’t finish before the light rain that was broadcasted today.”

“Fifty-five!” James calls. 

“That’s not how this works,” Slav reminds him. “But I’ll accept. It’s for a good cause, after all. And, there’s a seventy-two percent chance that someone else will follow up with an even higher offer!”

If it’s about the money, Slav can get, unsurprisingly, worse.

“Sixty!” Romelle enters the bidding pool out of nowhere. When Shiro looks in her direction, she gives him a thumbs up. She definitely isn’t in it for the basket or the date, but to up the price even further.

“ _Please._ No,” Shiro whispers and shakes his head at her frantically. But Romelle raises a second thumb, blissfully ignorant.

Shiro turns and runs with a goal in mind, worldlessly passing his daughter and Dean, because he knows there’s only one way to stop this insanity.

“You gotta bid on my basket,” Shiro says, as soon as he slaps the door of the diner open. An elderly woman spills her coffee and growls at him, and Shiro quickly gives her a handkerchief and a smile. When the woman smiles back tentatively, he turns back to Keith, walking in long strides towards the counter. “Help!”

Keith looks like a deer in the headlights, frozen with a fresh dishrag in his hand. “What?”

“My basket,” Shiro repeats. Usually, like Allura, Keith catches on quicker. “Please, Keith, have a heart.” 

“I never participate in these things,” Keith states, as if that would solve anything. Then he continues drying the plate in his hand.

Shiro gives him a look that says, ‘duh,’ then walks around the counter which already earns a few protests from Keith. They are half-hearted, Shiro knows, and if someone else tried this — Lance, for example — Keith would be more insistent on upholding his nitpicky diner rules.

“How does this open?” Shiro types on the cash register like a maniac, and promptly has Keith’s hands on him. 

“Stop,” he says, but not in his adorable angry or stormy Keith way, and not enough to actually keep Shiro at bay. But since he's gracious, Shiro pulls away on his own. He might not want to shake the rocking boat of their friendship too much.

"Not _stop_ , Keith," Shiro says and sees a young man wave his coffee cup. Keith ignores him. "Or I'll be sold off to the highest bidder. Do you really want my daughter to get a new dad who thinks I'm easily wooed by someone buying my lame-ass basket?" 

"Your basket," Keith repeats slowly in one moment, but walks with long strides to the front door, easily ignoring the still waving guy. "Don’t they read the contents out aloud at this event?" He doesn’t wait for Shiro to answer or follow him and slips out the door. 

"Hey!" Shiro protests, but follows him. 

Whatever possessed Keith to agree to Shiro's crazy plan — a small voice in Shiro's head assumes it's because of his aforementioned daughter and Keith's strong fatherly feelings towards her — he's unstoppable. 

Shiro knows as much when it takes only one bidder to raise his hand, a muffled, 'oh my God, it's Kogane,' and 83 Dollars for Keith to buy the basket. 

He’s thrilled. It means he doesn't have to date any of those guys, even if it’s only for one day. Shiro can get through the dates with a few people he likes and who are old enough to be his mom or dad. But he would feel a little uncomfortable if it’s someone who sprang for a matchmake with him.

"Oh god," Keith heaves and looks down at the really less than mediocre looking basket. A few feet away, Slav smiles happily at the money and turns his attention to Hunk's basket, which looks outrageously good. 

Shiro’s relief, although he’s got a guilty conscience. “My hero,” he sighs, but Keith’s brows only furrow deeper.

Shiro’s known the owner from Keith’s diner and lived through years of the platonic partnership of convenience - Keith provides important fuel to Shiro on a daily basis - until they finally got somewhere close to being friends. In all those years, Keith never fell short of a grumpy remark or scoff, and yet takes an usually long time of wordlessly looking at Hunk's basket, and back to his again.

"Who'd pay 83 Dollars for an expired Slim Jim?" Keith grumbles.

_There it is._

"Hey!" Shiro says again in protest, and in honest astonishment about how well Keith knows him. "Two _still edible_ Slim Jims and a whole box of mac'n cheese." 

Keith throws him a look, and Shiro is glad he doesn’t ask about the state of the mac’n cheese. Right before Shiro is about to confess, Keith eyes the basket again. 

"I'm going back to the diner now," he tells the basket, hair falling into his face. Frankly, Shiro thinks it's a little exaggerated how Keith’s holding it away from his body, but doesn't say as much. 

"Oh," is the only sound he makes. With obvious disappointment.

"What?" Keith says roughly. He always was a little scrawny and hot-headed, but Shiro has known him since he was a teen and took over his father’s hardware store to remodel it into a diner. Keith didn’t even take the sign off after his death, and occasionally confuses the tourists that end up in Stars Hollow of all places, completely unaware of its crazy townspeople.

Shiro saw right through Keith’s hard shell when they met the first time, and was never scared or intimidated by him. Maybe because he’s at least a head shorter than Shiro.

"Well," Shiro pauses, returning to the starting point of his thought labyrinth. He points at the basket. "We're supposed to eat it." 

“I bought it, and now I’ve gotta eat it?”

“Unless you want to read about the mysterious death of one upstanding Stars Hollow citizen, involving two Slim Jims and an expired box of mac’n cheese.”

Keith hesitates a moment. 

“I’m gonna get you a burger.”

“And fries!” Shiro calls after him.

As Shiro waits, he watches his daughter in the distance, still standing close to the auction. Her face is the epitome of unhappiness, worse than when she had an A- on that Spanish test she took voluntarily in 8th grade. Next to her stands Dean, her girlfriend of one year, and Jess, Keith’s niece, who’s the glaring troublemaker of the town. She wears a leather jacket and her hair is more disorganized than a bird’s nest. Shiro scoffs, far enough for none of them to hear him. Which is good. His daughter has already scolded him enough for being not so sweet on Jess and her shitty-ass behavior.

But she doesn’t need to know that Shiro used to date worse guys. And he knows his daughter is even smarter than him, and trusts her to make the right decisions.

He just… he worries sometimes, you know?

“Why are you staring at her?” Keith breaks Shiro out of his glaring with a jolt.

“No, uh,” he scratches his head. “No reason. I hope she didn’t forget to pack her Slim Jims.”

“I sure hope Dean knows she should ditch the basket and buy her pizza.”

“Dean’s a smart girl,” Shiro says, and watches with a frown as his daughter walks off with her basket and Jess.

Thankfully, Keith packed fries. And a milkshake. The burger, obviously, and some brownies, too.

He doesn’t say anything when Shiro dips his fry into his milkshake, even though Shiro knows exactly how much he condemns him for it, and opens up a freshly mixed salad in his reusable box.

Shiro loves junk food, and thankfully his body loves him enough to not make him feel all the sugar and carbs. But to keep his body from crashing down on him as soon as he hits his forties, Shiro feeds it the occasional lettuce leaf.

Keith doesn’t look amused when Shiro steals one from him.

“I hope you appreciate that I’m caring for my health,” Shiro comments and grins.

Despite his rough shell, when Keith’s together with Shiro like this and hears him crack a joke, he breaks into a grin, too. 

His grin is the softest and most pleasurable grin there is, Shiro thinks. 

“Can I ask you something?” Keith asks and sticks another forkful of a wonderful hearty salad into his mouth. Shiro admits it looks good, but he likes to stick to his juicy burger. 

“Sure.”

“Who was that basket for?”

Shiro mulls the question over in his head. “Who do you think it was for?” he returns. “For whom would I prepare something so spectacular?”

Keith stares at him blankly, then shrugs. “Romelle seemed eager.”

“Sorry, she cost you those ten extra bucks.”

“She’s gonna get the _bad table_ next time she comes over. And I’ll charge the extra syrup for her pancakes.”

Shiro knows Keith would never do that, especially not to Romelle. To Lance? On his bad days, maybe.

“I bow to your power, diner-guy.”

“The townspeople fear me,” Keith says and steals a fry. “But they also need me.”

Shiro grins and reaches for a brownie. “Well. Last year Pidge helped me fix my car.”

He pops the brownie in his mouth with one quick move of his hand. “And the year before, Coran gave me a tip on a good plumber.”

“Unbelievable,” Keith comments, but Shiro watches him grin at his salad.

“I don’t think I’d have gotten anything out of it this year,” Shiro continues, leans back and pats his tummy. “I feel like Griffin would have tried to lick my face.”

The noise that Keith makes is both born of disgust, and equally a strangled laugh. Shiro raises an eyebrow at him, and when their eyes meet, Keith quickly looks down at his salad again.

“But it’s nice. My daughter told me it’s a happy tradition and she’s glad I’m doing it, too. Showing all the men that it doesn’t have to be only the women packing baskets all the time.” 

Keith nods in earnest. “That’s clever.” He pauses. 

“ _She_ is,” Shiro says proudly and turns his full attention to what’s left of his fries. “But, Hunk has been packing his basket every year since I’ve known him, and he always earns the most money. If anyone deserves praise, it's both her _and_ him.” 

Shiro cranes his neck to see if he spots Hunk, but he’s already off somewhere. When he turns back, he shrugs at Keith and nods at his meal. For a while, they eat quietly while watching the bustle of the auction slowly dissolve. 

On this already pleasantly warm summer day, the sun comes out and shines into Keith’s eyes, reflecting light beautifully. When Keith notices Shiro’s intense gaze on him, he’s surprised first. Then his dimples show. “Well,” Keith says with a look at the plates and boxes empty in front of them, “I hope you got something out of this.”

Feeling caught, Shiro huffs a laugh at him. “Yeah,” he says with that ‘duh!’ kind of tone.

“That’ll be 23 dollars and 55 cents, then,” Keith says suddenly with an extended hand to Shiro. Scandalized, Shiro slaps it.

“Rude!” he complains with a laugh, but also promises to pay Keith back for the basket at least.

Keith calls him a sponger, but slaps away Shiro’s hand trying to push money into his pocket.

After a solicited resolution of the issue at hand — they decide to split the money in half, and Keith promises to clean Shiro’s rain gutter next week — they resume relatively peacefully on the bench at the pavilion, busy chatting and laughing until Slav appears and shoos them away. With one gesture, he waves them away while he’s talking to Kinkade vividly about an upcoming project for the Town Square. 

Kinkade throws them both a curious gaze, but Shiro only gives him a sympathetic grimace. Luckily, Kinkade doesn’t seem as bothered by Slav’s manic muttering about the project planning, and raises an eyebrow back. Shiro’s sure Slav has a heart of stone and most definitely interrupted his and Hunk’s date, too. 

_Poor Hunk_ , he thinks.

He and Keith both get up from the bench, exchange a short smile and awkward feelings, and bid each other goodbye, with Keith hurriedly stomping off to his diner. Shiro watches after him for a few seconds, before Slav looks like he’s ready to propel Shiro out of the pavilion.

Later, he’s home alone, with no daughter in sight. Shiro walks straight to the kitchen, drops his stuff on a chair, and reaches for the pack of coffee beans sitting readily on the counter within the same motion, and dumps them into his fully-automatic coffee maker that he got second-hand from his workplace. 

Just when he sits down, his phone pings.

 _< Pancakes or donuts?_ his daughter writes. _I’m on my way back._

Shiro’s fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment.

_> Why not both?_

_< Riding the sugar high in the evening. Got it. Coffee?_

_> Brewing you a cup right about now!_

For a second, Shiro deletes and rewrites the following message: _How was the picnic?_

After a long moment, there’s no response, and Shiro starts worrying. He quickly tries to calm himself: Maybe she’s waiting in line, maybe she has issues carrying both pancakes and donuts _and_ typing a reply. And a second later there’s an answer.

 _Definitely interesting_ , it says.

Shiro puts the phone down and lets out a long sigh. In theory, he knows his daughter is a wonderful young person and at times even more responsible than Shiro. (She’d never do motorsports like Shiro once did, and definitely not brag about that broken leg on top of it.)

But sometimes Shiro can’t help but worry. Worry about her, and...well, hat rowdy girl called Jess. _Keith’s niece_. That rowdy Jess with that _shitty attitude_ and the power to grind his daughter’s current relationship through a grain mill.

Shiro will definitely just drink his coffee and not worry about _that_.

Briefly, his mind flickers to today, and the success of not having to go on a basket date with any of the guys Allura got for him. He still grimaces at the thought. Allura’s a good soul, but she didn’t have to do that. Shiro’s not lonely, not in this town, with its people, Shiro’s friends and found family.

But then his thoughts shift back to his daughter and Dean. In an attempt to ignore his endless worry, Shiro decides that he’ll surround his thoughts around the spectacular dinner consisting of donuts and pancakes that’s about to come, and for that good sugar rush that’ll bring him heavenly pleasure. 

Mix in some respectfully appreciating thoughts of Keith in his usual pair of worker jeans when he fixes pretty much anything at Shiro’s house, it’ll _surely_ push all of Shiro’s worries away. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> anyone else sweating their tits off w this weather??? i swear
> 
> also even tho it doesn't seem that way, I really like Griffin and I'd allow him to lick my hand at least


End file.
